Little Things

I am, at this very moment, enjoying my first cup of coffee for about, oh… ten years or so. While I’ve had the odd cup over the years, I cannot say that I’ve enjoyed many of them. The possibility that wrenching pain will follow the very thing that you’re enjoying tends to take the shine off the experience. This cup on my desk is, however, milky and sweet and I am 95% certain it will not hurt me. This is everything I could ever want from a cup of coffee.

I’ve made a few small tweaks to the website – some for you, and some for me. I’ve added a few lines of code to display the number of comments per post on the main index page. That’s for me. The old theme displayed the five most recent comments in the sidebar; a feature I really liked, and was sad to lose. I have been looking for a way to add that two-way conversational feeling back to the main page and, thanks to WordPress, I found one this weekend that was fairly straightforward.

For you and for me, I’ve tidied up the place where my knitting patterns live. The formatting has annoyed me for some time, and I’m happy to have it finally sorted. I’ve also made room for another pattern to live on that page shortly. As I’ve mentioned in the podcast, I have been working on a new sock pattern. For a very long time. The pattern is chock full o’ charts, which is why it’s taking a long time to write. This weekend I added an image of this complex, yet very satisfying to knit sock. I am, as it happens, very satisfied with the finished sock, as the stretchy mesh makes it one of the best fitting and most comfortable socks I’ve ever worn.

I also fixed all the broken image links in the pattern pages – but wait, there’s more! – for you, I’ve added printable page links to Mrs Beeton, and Pembrokeshire Pathways. Clearly, bed rest is good for my website.

It’s also been very good for my knitting…

I finished the scarf that was my hospital and early recovery project. If there’s a bad time to knit Clapotis, I haven’t found it yet. The yarn is hand dyed by my friend, Meg, and I can’t remember if it’s superwash merino or sock yarn, but she nailed my favorite colors, spot on. It was a goodly sized skein, but not quite enough for Clapotis. I fudged with some different sock yarn for the last four inches or so. Yes, you can see it if you look. So I don’t.

The socks I stole the yarn from were next off the needles…

These are Elfin’s Socks, in an autumnal colorway. Lost the ball band on this one, and have no idea what the yarn is, but I luffs it. Calve shaping, which is not in the pattern, was accomplished by changing needle sizes, and I finished with a half inch picot turned hem. This is my new favorite happy ending for Toe-Up socks. ((Here’s how I work that Picot Bind Off:

Work to within a half inch of the top of the sock.

Round: 1: Purl, increasing or decreasing 1 if necessary, to obtain an even number of stitches.
Rounds 2 – 6: Knit
Round 7: *YO, K2Tog. Rep from * to end.
Rounds 8 – 11: Knit

Fold sock along picot edge, and work a VERY LOOSE three needle bind off, by picking up the purl bumps just above the inside of Row 1, and binding them off together with the live stitches.))

And then came this little not-quite-scarf. Now, I know some people do adore garter stitch, but I am not among their number. Oh, it’s fine in its place. I’m not against a few rows, worked as an edging, say, but great swathes of the stuff leave me cold.

Imagine my surprise then, when I found myself attracted to this, and actually falling in love with its counterpart, here. I mean, honestly, imagine my shock. It’s like one of those 1940’s screwball comedies, where the girl hates the guy and they trade wisecracks, until she discovers his redeeming qualities and removes her glasses and he, with a sense of growing wonder says, “Why Miss Garter, you’re beautiful,” and they live happily ever after.

Knit from a discontinued Jaeger DK Merino that I picked up in Italy last year, the scarf-lette worked up extremely quickly, considering I didn’t have the pattern. Don’t get me wrong, I’d have been delighted to pay for it. It’s just not available for download anywhere that I could find, and I couldn’t see waiting weeks and weeks for a printed pattern to arrive from the US. So I looked at the picture and knocked one off. I don’t know if my way is the same as the designer’s way, but the result pleases me nonetheless. Yup. Garter stitch. Who knew it looked so good without its glasses.